Sylvain Émard

2026 Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award (Dance)

Dancer, choreographer and teacher

One of Canada’s foremost choreographers, Sylvain Émard has created more than 40 original works and has made an enduring contribution to contemporary dance in Canada and internationally. His practice is grounded in his keen interest in the body’s expressive power and in the dynamics of human physicality and interconnection. From meditative solos to large-scale communal pieces and an immersive installation, his work stands out for its precision, inventiveness, and inclusivity, bridging the gap between high art and popular dance, professional performers and amateurs, intimacy and spectacle.
 
Mr. Émard was born in Montréal in 1956, and worked as an actor before turning to dance in the 1980s. He studied movement with Étienne Decroux in Paris, Min Tanaka in Tokyo, and Linda Rabin in Montréal, among others, and worked with such renowned choreographers as Jean-Pierre Perreault, Louise Bédard, and Jo Lechay.
 
He choreographed his first piece in 1987, and founded his own company, Sylvain Émard Danse, in 1990. His early work was highly theatrical; over time, however, he developed a more disciplined, formal approach to dance, favouring controlled, fluid movement. His best-known works include Rumeurs; the Climatology of Bodies trilogy (Pluie, Temps de chien, and Wave); Rhapsodie, for 20 dancers; and most recently Magnetic Fields, a sextet inspired by quantum physics.
 
In 2009, he unveiled Le Grand Continental, an ambitious contemporary line dance. Since then, various editions of the project have been mounted worldwide, mobilizing more than 3,500 local participants and attracting thousands of spectators. In 2017, for Montréal’s 375th anniversary, he staged Le Super Méga Continental, which featured 375 amateur dancers in a monumental outdoor spectacle. “That project did me a lot of good,” he recalls. “It brought me back to the essence of my love for dance.”
 
He has also worked as a guest choreographer in theatre, opera, and film. He has taught at the Université du Québec à Montréal and Concordia University, and frequently gives master classes in Canada and Europe.
 
Sylvain Émard co-founded Montréal’s Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique, and co-chairs the Regroupement québécois de la danse. He has received the Canada Council for the Arts’ Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, the Jean A. Chalmers Choreographic Award, and a Recognition Award from the Quartier des spectacles Partnership in Montréal.